


The Monster You Can See

by lodessa



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-23
Updated: 2007-08-23
Packaged: 2017-11-16 07:24:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/536965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/pseuds/lodessa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa learned long ago that it is the monster with the pretty face and easy smile that is most to be feared...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Monster You Can See

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redcandle17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/gifts).



The life of Alayne Stone is a simple one. Her husband requires from a wife food on his table and a warm body in his bed, and little else. It is not so different than what Sansa was raised to expect, well once you get rid of the silly notions of chivalry and romance that Joffery and his doting mother disabused her of long ago. Sansa learned long ago that it is the monster with the pretty face and easy smile that is most to be feared: Joffery the handsome prince who beat and humiliated her, Cersei the beautiful and gracious queen who betrayed Sansa's confidence and murdered her father. The small kindnesses she knew there were from the Fool, the Imp, and the Hound, all of them misshapen or in disgrace. The monster than hides behind fair words and courtesy had done Sansa all sorts of harm in King’s Landing… which is why she agreed to flee, even if it was with a drunken sop of a fool.

Sometimes she feels like fleeing was almost for nothing. He is here in the Vale too. Alayne’s father requires everything her husband does of her and more. He is Sansa’s savior and protector, and yet he’s more dangerous than careless roughness of her husband’s appetites and the sell swords’ blades. He is the greatest of the hypocrites. There’s something unnatural in his easiness. He never hurts her, never threatens, never is cruel or cold, Sansa can’t help thinking of Sandor Clegane, the Hound, and how he was always harsh and frightening. His hands were rough and his face hideously marred. Petyr is lithe and handsome, his slender hands made for courtship and deception. The devil who wears his horns openly is better than the one who is concealed beneath fair words and handsome features. 

The clang of swords in the courtyard is alarming, but Sansa is hardly worried about the outcome. Another husband, another lying snake with one thing on his mind and another on his lips, is sure to come. She misses her fear of outward terror. Now she knows too much and there is no danger of her being slain. She’s too young, too pretty. If Harrold and Petyr fall, there will be someone else asking the same sorts of things. Sansa almost hopes that he is old and ugly. At least then everyone will know how things are, as she does now. Life is not a song.

When she sees his scarred and distorted face in the reflection of her mirror, Sansa thinks that his timing has improved. The aptness seems somehow inappropriate. 

“Are you going to sing for me little bird?”

She doesn’t scream or resist. Her whole life is a series of flights, so she’s glad when they finally stop. The keep is old and decaying, but at least it is what it seems, just as the man in front of her is. Sandor doesn’t want anything terribly different than those that came before him. Sansa’s life is now simple, and now there are no fake smiles that deformity can hide behind. She feels like she’s been trapped in one of the tales Old Nan used to tell, whose heroes and heroines who wandered off into magical realms only to stumble back out into the real world decades later. It is good to know that what one sees is the truth. No more prisons of glass, no more “fathers” who creep into one’s bed at night. There’s only coarse food, and coarse company, and no one coming to rescue her. That last thought is a relief.


End file.
